ROBERT A. PAPE is Professor of Political Science and Director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats. He is the author of Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War.

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FAR HORIZONS

Horizontal escalation occurs when a state widens the geographic and political scope of a conflict rather than intensifying it vertically in a single theater. It is especially appealing as a strategy for the weaker parties in a military contest. Instead of trying to defeat a stronger adversary head-on, the weaker side multiplies arenas of risk—drawing additional states, economic sectors, and domestic publics into the remit of the conflict. Iran cannot defeat the United States or Israel in a conventional military contest. It does not need to. Its objective is to gain greater political leverage.

The strategy of horizontal escalation follows a recognizable pattern. First, Iran has demonstrated resilience. U.S. decapitation strikes intended to paralyze the Iranian military. By launching large-scale retaliation within hours of losing the supreme leader and many senior commanders, Tehran signaled continuity of command and operational capacity.

Second, Iran has widened the conflict well beyond Iranian territory, effecting what scholars call “multiplication of exposure.” Rather than confining retaliation to just Israel, Iran struck or aimed at targets in at least nine countries, most hosting U.S. forces: Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Greece, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The message was unmistakable: those countries that host American forces would face severe consequences and the war that Israel and the United States started will spread.

Decapitation strikes create powerful incentives for horizontal escalation.

Third, Iran has politicized the conflict through its strikes. Iran’s retaliation has resulted in the closure of airports, the burning of commercial property, the killing of foreign workers, and the disruption of energy and insurance markets. Gulf leaders have been forced to reassure foreign investors and tourists. The war has migrated into boardrooms and parliamentary chambers. In the United States, the widening scope of the war has alarmed members of Congress. Numerous actors have now entered the conflict, each pursuing distinct interests, none fully coordinated, and all capable of altering the trajectory of escalation beyond Washington’s control.

The final dimension of Iran’s strategy is time. The longer multiple states feel pressure, the more that politics both within and among regional states can intensify the conflict. Without a version of NATO in the Middle East or a single American general effectively running the military operation for all the countries targeted by Iran, there is a high risk of wires getting crossed. U.S. officials have, for instance, floated the idea of stoking an ethnic rebellion in Kurdish parts of Iran to help target the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But that might provoke responses from Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, countries that would not welcome a powerful Kurdish insurgency in the region. The recent downing of three U.S. jets in a friendly-fire incident over Kuwait also illustrates the logistical and coordination problems that bedevil any attempt to fend off Iran’s escalation in the Gulf.

Iran’s foreign ministry reinforced this logic publicly, framing the missile barrages as legitimate responses against all “hostile forces” in the region. The phrasing has widened responsibility for the attack on Iran beyond Israel and the United States to encompass the broader U.S.-aligned order in the Gulf. Although Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has apologized to Gulf neighbors for the attacks, the installation of a new supreme leader aligned closely with the Revolutionary Guard suggests that such gestures are tactical rather than a signal that Tehran intends to abandon its strategy of horizontal escalation. Fundamentally, Iran’s horizontal escalation is a political strategy. It plays directly to the audience that Iran seeks to persuade: the Muslim populations across the region that may not be ideologically aligned with Iran but are generally poorly disposed toward Israel.

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This will make you poop earlier than 3 days though.

While many observers predicted chaos, visitors who headed to NPS-managed sites over the summer mostly saw parks that seemed to be functioning as normal. The bathrooms were clean, the trash picked up, the visitor centers staffed.

Behind that veneer of normalcy, though, all was not well. Outside Articles Editor Fred Dreier spent two months talking to active and former rangers at Rocky Mountain National Park and learned how staff cuts—and now a government shutdown—have stretched some of them to their breaking point.

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And what people told me is, “Look, the people who work at the NPS care a lot about their jobs. And they’re going to do everything within their power to make sure it seems like things are not falling apart. They are going to do so at the sacrifice of their own mental and physical well-being. They’re going to take on extra shifts and work long hours and do these things to make sure that the park appears like it’s working normal, even though they’re going to have to really step up to do it.”

And so that’s the thrust of the story, is about how the people at Rocky Mountain National Park, the rangers, the full-time rangers—they lost anywhere from 30 to 40 of their co-workers—but they are stepping up to fill those jobs and to fill those positions. And by doing so, they are having to take on lots of overtime, lots of extra shifts, and work these insanely long weeks and long hours to make sure everything is working well. But they are doing so at the sacrifice of their own mental and emotional well-being.

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things have always been tough and it’s always been a labor of love, but this is the year that it reached a ridiculous level of physical and emotional strife. My sources told me they saw people breaking down in tears on their job, searching for other jobs, just having really, really difficult situations.

And park management knows this. One of the most pressing parts of my story was that I obtained an email that was sent from an NPS full-time employee at Rocky Mountain National Park to management as a ‘reply all’ to a message that had been sent by the park superintendent. And in this email, the NPS worker said, “This is beyond what I’ve ever seen. I’ve worked for the NPS for 12 years. I’ve worked for the Forest Service. I’ve worked for the BLM. And I’ve never seen a park unit so understaffed, so overworked, and seen people pushed so to their breaking point. And we need relief. We need some type of light at the end of the tunnel that’s coming.” And from what I understand, that was not addressed by park management.

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I was reading the article from the Pew research on recent poll numbers, and was wondering if anyone knew if national crime stats have actually gone down? (Reflecting the impression that the poll indicates.) My guess is they haven't. I'm lost in other projects at the moment, but would be curious if anyone has good sources or knowledge on this?

While there may not be wholesale changes to the NYPD if Tisch stays as police commissioner, there would be new initiatives under Mamdani, such as a new civilian agency called the Department of Community Safety. The agency would focus on a community-based prevention approach targeting homelessness and people experiencing mental illness.

Its hallmark won’t be adding more police but rather adding more mental health professionals and violence interrupters – a plan Mamdani says he hopes would free up officers to respond to other crimes.

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Looming in the distance as well is the threat of potential federal intervention into crime-fighting in New York City, should Mamdani win the election.

Mamdani has spoken out about President Donald Trump sending National Guard troops into Democrat-run major cities, a move the president says is to restore law and order. Mamdani previously told CNN he would respond to the attempt by filing a lawsuit.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/post/533816

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CNN asked Miller whether the Trump Administration will abide by a district judge’s order blocking the Guard’s deployment in Oregon. “Well, the Administration filed an appeal this morning with the Ninth Circuit,” Miller began. “I would note the Administration won an identical case in the Ninth Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard.”

Then, Miller said: “Under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the President has plenary authority, has—” before making an abrupt stop. Miller blinked several times, with anchor Boris Sanchez calling out his name, though he still did not respond.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenary_power

A plenary power or plenary authority is a complete and absolute power to take action on a particular issue, with no limitations.

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CNN asked Miller whether the Trump Administration will abide by a district judge’s order blocking the Guard’s deployment in Oregon. “Well, the Administration filed an appeal this morning with the Ninth Circuit,” Miller began. “I would note the Administration won an identical case in the Ninth Circuit just a few months ago with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard.”

Then, Miller said: “Under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the President has plenary authority, has—” before making an abrupt stop. Miller blinked several times, with anchor Boris Sanchez calling out his name, though he still did not respond.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenary_power

A plenary power or plenary authority is a complete and absolute power to take action on a particular issue, with no limitations.